Even as many Democrats appear to accept organized labor’s decline, Republicans recognize the crucial importance of unions and are determined to gut them further. The conservative who may understand labor’s ongoing significance best is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. In a 2017 essay for OZY.com, “Why Republicans (and Trump) May Still Win […]

MILWAUKEE — With their recent selection of Milwaukee for their party’s 2020 convention, Democrats left little doubt that they believe their path to the White House runs through the Midwest in general and Wisconsin in particular. Their optimism spiked in November, when Democrats defeated Scott Walker, the state’s two-term conservative governor. And they were energized […]

Foxconn, the giant Taiwan-based company that announced plans for a $10 billion display-making factory in Wisconsin, now says it is rethinking the project’s focus because of “new realities” in the global marketplace. The project was hailed by President Trump at a groundbreaking last June as the “eighth wonder of the world” and an example of […]

Foxconn, the giant Taiwan-based company that announced plans for a $10 billion display-making factory in Wisconsin, now says it is rethinking the project’s focus because of “new realities” in the global marketplace. The project was hailed by President Trump at a groundbreaking last June as the “eighth wonder of the world” and an example of […]

ImageElianna Schiffrik, center, was among a small group of counter-protesters outside the Supreme Court during the March for Life on Friday.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times Abortion opponents have spent decades planning for a Supreme Court with a majority hostile to reproductive rights. So it’s little surprise that, with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh in the […]

LANSING, Mich. — On both sides of Lake Michigan this month, Republican-dominated legislatures pushed forward measures aimed at hamstringing Democrats who will take over their statehouses in January. On the Wisconsin side, Gov. Scott Walker shrugged at accusations of dirty politics and partisan overreach and signed them into law. In Michigan, all eyes are on […]

Wisconsin’s judiciary, officially nonpartisan, has been marred in recent years by political intrigue, divisive elections and even accusations of one judge placing another in a chokehold. Now it may be what decides the fate of the outgoing governor’s new laws to limit the power of his successor. “There will be a challenge, no doubt,” Gov. […]

FOX CROSSING, Wis. — Scott Walker, rejected by Wisconsin voters in his quest for a third term as governor, has spent recent days trying to define how his eight years in office are remembered. He posted 21 tweets in 25 minutes, each starting with “OUR LEGACY” and listing an accomplishment. Facing angry accusations on Facebook, […]

This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday. First, if you doubt that Republicans are becoming more willing to defy President Trump, consider the Senate’s vote on the crisis in Yemen yesterday. Senators don’t normally rein in a president’s war powers. Wisconsin fallout. […]

The Wisconsin Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, a Republican, said the quiet part out loud this week when he told reporters that it was a blatant power grab for his lame duck chamber to pass legislation that weakens the incoming Democratic governor, Tony Evers. “We did have an election,” Mr. Vos said on Tuesday. “Whether everyone […]

MADISON, Wis. — Last spring, after Wisconsin Democrats seized a state legislative seat long held by Republicans and sent a liberal justice to the State Supreme Court, Republicans began to worry. Gov. Scott Walker, preparing to seek a third term, warned his fellow Republicans on Twitter of the “risk of a blue wave” and publicly […]

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Republicans, following the tactics of conservative lawmakers in Wisconsin, moved on Thursday to start limiting the power of the incoming Democratic secretary of state and set the stage for additional curbs on the Democrats who will take over as governor and attorney general in January. The G.O.P.-led State Senate in Michigan, […]

ImageProtesting in the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., this week.CreditLauren Justice for The New York Times In much of Wisconsin, “Madison and Milwaukee” are code words (to some, dog whistles) for the parts of the state that are nonwhite, elite, different: The cities are where people don’t have to work hard with their hands, because […]

Late Friday afternoon, less than a month after a Democrat, Tony Evers, defeated Scott Walker, the incumbent Republican governor, Robin Vos, the Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, followed through on his threat to strip the new governor of some of his power. That day, an assembly committee released five bills that grant sweeping […]

PEWAUKEE, Wis. — Gov. Scott Walker, who moved Wisconsin to the right over the last eight years, cutting taxes and sharply diminishing the power of labor unions, was defeated on Wednesday by the Democrat, Tony Evers, the state schools superintendent, The Associated Press reported. The advantage for Mr. Evers was razor thin, a little over […]

ARMENIA, Wis. — The groundwater that once ran cool and clean from taps in this Midwestern farming town is now laced with contaminants and fear. People refuse to drink it. They won’t brush their teeth with it. They dread taking showers. Rural communities call it their own, private Flint— a diffuse, creeping water crisis tied […]

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Republican leaders are increasingly worried that their candidates for governor and Senate are in political trouble across Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and other states that the party prizes, and that the difficulties could spill into House races that the G.O.P. needs to win in November to keep control of the chamber. Their […]

Mr. Evers, 66, was a teacher and principal before he became the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, and he looks the part — a pen at the ready in his dress shirt pocket, a flop of white hair and a gentle smile. His name is widely known in the state, but his political style is […]

WASHINGTON — As the Senate hearings on Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh cleaved the country, Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida, stayed mostly out of the fray — uncharacteristic reticence for a politician who usually relishes partisan battles. But by last weekend, Mr. DeSantis had changed his tune. “These people really debase the […]

THE FALL OF WISCONSIN The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American PoliticsBy Dan Kaufman 319 pp. W.W. Norton & Company. $26.95. Fourteen years ago the pundit Thomas Frank asked what was the matter with Kansas. Today the question is, who sank Wisconsin? In “The Fall of Wisconsin,” the journalist Dan […]